Collaboration is at the heart of what we do, so for our first birthday 🎂 we wanted to make something that honed in on our core values, with a little bit of everything we love — 2D animation, 3D animation, motion graphics, videography, music — with all elements flowing together harmoniously.
Here’s the how:
Step One and Two – Script Writing and Voice Over
Consideration for how we spoke about ourselves as a business was the grounding part of the eight-step process (cue the creative script writing montage). Our script, once recorded as a voice over, served as the foundation for our video, as it sets the stage and a rhythm for all of the scenes to follow.
Step Three and Four – Mood Board and Style Frames / Storyboards
With the stage and pace set, the next step is style. At this stage it’s about putting a face to the name, so to speak.
Time for inspiration, mood boards and style frames! What is it going to look like when the voice over says ‘the flow-staters’? How can we reinforce the language with visuals? What’s an appropriate style for our audience?
There’s a ‘multi-verse’ of considerations and decisions to be made at this stage, but don’t worry that’s why we’re here for you!
Step Five – Freelancer Safari
With a little Traphic magic, the style frames are ready and we’re on a freelancer safari. We’re seeking and securing the right talent for the right role at the right price, within the right timeframe to get the job done.
‘People’ by Mikey Dowdle.
Process, skill and a little bit of luck meant we were able to enlist the talents of Joe Taylor (past clients include: Netflix, Apple, TED) and Mikey Dowdle (featured by: Creative Boom, It’s Nice That) to help bring our idea to life.
*Other freelancers do exist*
Step Six – Animatics and Scene Creation
With meet and greets over, Joe and Mikey began their process by creating an animatic — a series of images played in sequence, based loosely on our style frames and set to the voice over that we provided. This gives a first glance at the artist’s creative interpretation, and a better feel for the pacing of the scene. At this stage, it’s a lot easier to make adjustments, so this is the time to alter and fine tune.
Whilst our professional duo worked their magic, we engaged our papier mache skills from our younger years, and recruited the help of videographer genius Jamie Parr, to shoot a good old get-together with our creative friends. At Traphic, we really value our community, so it was important for us to get them involved in the video (it was also a great opportunity to have a few beers 🍻).
Step Seven and Eight – Post Production and Sound
Fast forward in time with a few tweaks and twists along the way, our collective efforts meant we could move on to post-production. This is where we spliced everything together into one cohesive masterpiece of Traphic goodness, sprinkled with a bit of sound engineering from our founder and director James, to really bring the whole thing to life.
Eight special people following an eight step process brought our vision to life. Each collaborator bringing with them something unique to the production. Through fostering, enforcing and building relationships with creative professionals, we are able to take our work to the next level.
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
Aristotle
